Best Propét Shoes For Diabetics Reviewed

Depending on your age and health condition, it may not be easy to spend a lot of time on your feet. For many people, walking and even standing puts a lot of strain on their joints - ankles, knees, and hips - and may exacerbate their existing ailments. And yet, avoiding activity and physical exercise altogether, especially in the form of walking, makes matters even worse.

It is important to strike a good balance between activity and rest, between living your life to the fullest and allowing your body to relax and recover before the next adventure.

This is where solid, comfortable footwear plays a key role.

Propét guarantees comfort, regardless of the design and regardless of your needs. They are confident that they can deliver only the best walking experience for your feet, and honestly, we are inclined to believe them.

Propét achieves this by utilizing a number of comfort systems in their designs, which we will explain more in detail here.

• Rejuve Motion Technology: This comfort technology helps correct alignment relative to the leg and to the ground. You might have noticed that your foot tends to roll inwards as you walk - which is called overpronation - or outwards - called supination. Incorrect alignments like these can lead to any number of unpleasant consequences, such as knocked knees, joint pain, hip pain, and even spine and lower back problems. This is why the Rejuve Motion Technology keeps your foot controlled while you walk, but not at the expense of natural movement. You will still be able to move around as much as you’d like, to walk freely, only you’d be wonderfully supported all throughout.
• Removable Footbeds: One thing that is common for almost all of the designs on our list is that they have removable footbeds. This makes maintaining the shoe easier - as you can simply throw the footbed into the washing machine and get rid of any bad odors - but it also helps if you have custom orthotics that you need to wear. Simply replace the footbed with your orthotic and you’ll be good to go in no time!
• Double Insoles: The Propét EV (extra volume) is a special insole system which provides customized fit and comfort. Essentially, in each design with this technology, there are two insoles which you can remove or add to your liking. Remove one of them to provide more volume to the inside of the shoe, and remove both of them if you wish to insert your own orthotics. It’s that simple!
• Ortholite Insoles: Finally, Ortholite is a technology we’ve already seen in many other brands. This is a name of its own, but one which lends itself to all premium footwear on the market. Ortholite insoles are made from an open cell, lightweight foam materials which create a cool and dry interior. There is no unwanted bulk or weight to the design - it truly is a type of comfort that has to be experienced to be believed, from the inside out.

In the Comfort section, we explored some of the comfort technologies that this brand includes in their designs, but there are many others which aren’t related to comfort but are still widely used. These advanced features can’t be found in all of Propét's styles at the same time; rather, their placement depends on the purpose of the design, as well as its construction.

Let’s get to know these features a bit more.

• Flexible: Designs marked with the Flexible stamp are made with low-profile outsoles which contain added flexibility. This promotes the foot’s natural movement and allows you to be more free on your feet, so you can enjoy many light activities over the course of your day.
• DriStep Insoles: These unique insoles are made from bamboo charcoal. This is a sustainable material - environment-friendly! - which has the ability to regulate humidity. By preventing your feet from sweating and reducing humidity within a design, DriStep Insoles also provide odor control. No more smelly feet!
• Washable : Footwear which is marked as Washable by Propét can easily be washed by using a washing machine without any worry that the design will lose its shape or otherwise get damaged.
• Stretchable: It is especially hard to find footwear which fits right if you suffer from bunions, hammertoes or similar problems which require some extra ‘give’ from the upper. This is why the brand produces footwear made out of stretchable faux leather, PU and neoprene panels which provide just enough elasticity so your feet are comfortable in any situation.
• Scotchgard: As we mentioned in our list, Scotchgard represents a protective treatment which ensures that designs are both water and stain repellent. In these, you can walk around in the light rain without any problems, and forget about spending hours trying to get persistent stains to come out of the upper.
• Waterproof: A special laminate or Sealtex construction, as seen in the Tatum bootie, keep the water out no matter what the conditions are outside. Your feet will remain warm and dry in waterproof footwear, so you don’t have to constantly stress over the weather forecast.
• Thinsulate: This type of insulation is often seen in other branded footwear designed to withstand harsh, cold conditions, such as Sorel and Columbia boots. Thinsulate is actually made from fibers which absorb less than 1% of their weight in water. It is currently one of the lightest synthetic insulators available and will make sure that your feet are nice and toasty, even in damp conditions.
• Vaporex Insoles: Vaporex Insoles are created in-house by Propét. Their purpose is to retain heat by using a foil backing and insulating materials which preserve warmth even in the most inclement weather.

Apart from all of these bonus features that can easily be found in footwear from Propét, we also have to mention how a great number of these designs is Medicare Approved. This means that the Medicare Therapeutic Shoes for Persons with Diabetes Benefit has approved certain models for reimbursement to those who suffer from diabetes.

When you’re not a regular size or a regular fit, a little adjustability goes a long way. Footwear which can be customized to fit the shape of your foot is a real luxury, as you can then adjust it to be tight enough so that it doesn’t slip off, but not so tight that it is cutting off blood flow or causing blisters.

Most items from our list have some level of adjustability to them. These range from regular lacing systems to bungee laces to velcro straps. Which one you choose is entirely up to you - maybe you even prefer footwear without any closures, for easier use? - but before you commit to a design, we need to expand a little on each type of adjustment features, so that you can make an informed decision.

The most common closure and one which provides the highest level of adjustability is a simple shoelace system. You see this everywhere - on your favorite sneakers, boots, even on some type of modern heel designs. The reason we love laces is that they provide adjustability along the entire length of the design, and you can easily adapt the fit to your foot width and the height of your instep.

What is the downside of laces is that they can be complicated to tie? If you’re not very skilled at it, or simply don’t want to bother, there are other options with which you might be comfortable.

One of them is a bungee toggle system. This, too, is a type of lacing, but one which doesn’t require you to actually tie anything. Bungee closures have a plastic clip of sorts, which you can press to loosen the grip of the laces, or you can pull and tighten them for a more secure fit. All of this is incredibly easy to use and quick to adjust. One press or pull of your fingers and you’re all set!

And finally, we have the simplest, yet no less effective, system of the velcro. Velcro straps are a friend to everyone, from two-year-old children to ninety-two-year-old grandparents. If placed right on the design - say, in the form of several straps across the length of the foot - they provide almost as much adjustability as regular laces do, with far less effort. You just unstick them, get them to the right length, and fasten them back on. A piece of cake!

Of course, as we briefly mentioned before, we have to reiterate that, if you are having trouble reaching your feet, or you don’t want to waste time on any closures - slip-on designs are also a good choice. However, these offer no adjustability whatsoever, so keep that in mind while you’re browsing.

In order to succeed in delivering only the highest quality products to their consumers, it is understandable that Propét utilizes only the highest quality materials.

Natural materials such as leather and suede are definitely the best choice when it comes to footwear. These are breathable, as they allow air to flow in and out of a design, and comfortable since they have the lovely ability to change shape over time. The more you wear a model made from leather or suede, the more comfortable it will be since the upper will take the form of your foot and become like a second skin. Additionally, footwear made out of these natural materials is also highly durable and will serve you well for many seasons to come.

There is one small disadvantage to leather and suede, and that is that they aren’t naturally water repellent or waterproof. But the title brand of this article has a solution to that, in the form of their Scotchgard and Waterproof technologies we’ve talked about in our Advanced Features section. These make-up for what the materials themselves can’t provide.

Furthermore, Propét also uses mesh materials. While not very durable, these are extremely gentle on the skin and even more breathable than leathers. Mesh is a highly porous fabric, and thus it reduces the chance of sweaty feet and all that results from that, such as foot infections and bad odors.

One more significant material type we have encountered in our research is neoprene. This is an amazingly resilient fabric, one that is used in the construction of wetsuits, tablet cases, camera bags etc. It is water and weather resistant, as well as with amazing cushioning and protective properties. Not only that, but neoprene is also latex-free, which means that you don’t have to worry about getting a possible allergic reaction.

The material most often found in midsoles (and those of this brand, as well) is EVA. Ethylene vinyl acetate is a special shock-absorbing foam which has the ability to evenly distribute impact through the shoe. That way, upon every strike of your heel, the impact force doesn’t travel up to your joints, causing damage, but it is instead absorbed by the EVA midsole, protecting you from a myriad of potential medical problems later on.

For the outsoles, Propét ensures only the best, most durable of rubbers, with different patterns and grooves on the bottom for providing different levels of traction. If you are spending your days on the city streets, on flat, unchallenging surfaces, then a simple multi-directional patterned outsole will suffice. However, if you are interested in hiking, and prefer going on more difficult hiking trails, then you should definitely go for an outsole that is sturdier, that has lugs and added slip-resistance to it.

One of the key things we’ve looked at when putting together our list of best items from Propét is how durable the designs are. Do they last for many seasons to come, or do they fall apart in record time? How long can you expect to enjoy these comfortable shoes before they’re all worn out?

As evident from our Materials section, the company uses only the best materials on the market for their footwear. This is a very good sign since items made out of genuine leather are far more durable than those made out of synthetics. It depends on how thickly the leather is layered - more layers = more durability - but the general rule is that.

However, over the course of our research, we have come across numerous accounts where these designs have not lasted very long. A few months in, a seam would come undone, a strap would break, or even the sole of the design would start separating from the upper. These are not frequent occurrences, but they do happen often enough that we felt the need to rank the designs in our list according to their durability.

Because after all, don’t you want the shoes you buy to last you for as long as possible? If this is an important feature for you, and you don’t want to compromise on durability, make sure to sort the designs according to this criteria and choose from the topmost ones. Good luck!